Whose dream is this anyway

Everett 2022-08-02 09:33:37

The film won this year's Oscar for best documentary.

It tells a story of Philippe, a young French man, from preparation, planning, and final success with his friends in order to fulfill his dream. What Philippe wanted to do was to walk a tightrope between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York. For this reason, he began to teach himself to walk a tightrope, and successfully tried to build a tightrope on Notre Dame Cathedral and the Sydney Bridge in private and illegally, and walked on it without protection. The tightrope walking between the World Trade Center Twin Towers gradually came to the agenda as he improved his skills. His girlfriend and his two friends repeatedly discussed the details with him: how to enter the WTO, how to transport the steel cables to the roof, how to build the steel cables and how to stabilize them. Philippe also found two Americans to help him, and finally in 1974, he succeeded. There were many ups and downs in the actual implementation in the middle, which almost fell short of success. Coupled with the appropriate background music, this documentary is indeed worth watching.

One has to dream and realize it. For this, he needs friends-loyal friends-to help him. Philippe found two, and his girlfriend gave him spiritual support. His friends took his dreams as their own dreams and went all out to help him. One of them even after he was expelled by the US government for helping him walk a tightrope in the WTO, he hoped to help Philippe again to realize his next dream.

There is no next time, his other friend said, because this friend saw the end of their friendship with Philippe. Philippe fulfilled his dream and became famous throughout the United States. From this day on, these two friends were no longer useful to him. And, after he became famous, some women gave him an embrace: Philippe opened a room with an actress who took the initiative to send him to the hotel on the night he left the detention center. The girlfriend who was worried about him, proud of him, and fascinated by him, has since been abandoned by him. During the interview, he did not reveal any regrets for the broken friendship, and he did not apologize to his girlfriend at the time. Philippe didn't feel ashamed of these three people. He didn't think it should be because success belongs to him alone. It is him who is leaving. Walk a tightrope over a hundred meters above the ground. On the contrary, when his friend talked about it, he cried twice with excitement. His girlfriend's eyes gleamed and said that the ending was beautiful (to the effect).

His friends regarded his dream as their own. Of course, these friends knew that they were not qualified to enjoy success. They helped Philippe out of friendship, and Philippe took advantage of this. I think his friends did not expect any benefits from it. The break in friendship was not because Philippe became famous, but because they found that Philippe no longer regarded them as friends. The fact that they were used is too hard to let go.

My experience is, don’t take other people’s dreams as your own. Even if you don't have any surprising dreams, don't become a tool for others to realize their dreams. Walking a tightrope between the two towers of the World Trade Center is indeed beautiful, but this beauty does not belong to the friends who help this person.

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Extended Reading

Man on Wire quotes

  • Sgt Charles Daniels: ...I observed the tight rope dancer... because you couldn't call him a walker... approximately half-way between the two towers. I personally figured I was watching something that somebody else would never see again in the world. Thought it was once in a lifetime.

  • Philippe Petit: As a child, I loved to climb everywhere. I'll let the psychiatrists decide why. Maybe I wanted to escape my time. Maybe I wanted to see the world from a different perspective and I was an explorer at heart. Who knows and who cares? But I was a little climber. And nobody, not my parents, not the teachers, nobody could stop me.